Ruth D. Bachike

Ruth D. Bachike passed away on Sunday, June 23 at the age of 94, with her daughters by her side. She was a resident of Yardley, Pennsylvania for 60 years.

 Ruth Katherine Dye grew up on her family’s farm on Friendship Road outside of Dayton, New Jersey with her parents John and Mary, younger sister, Jessie and brothers, Jack and David. It was a busy and hardworking childhood as she helped plant, pick, and can the farm’s bounty. She learned to sew, knit, crochet and embroider from her mother. Farm life endowed her with a quiet strength and fortitude that served her well. After graduating from Jamesburg High School, she pursued a Bachelor’s degree at Douglass College, while also working as an assistant in the Personnel Office at Princeton University. She saved up enough money to spend a year away at Dickinson College, which gave her the opportunity to make friends far afield and travel to new and exciting places. She returned to Douglass College and earned a B.A., graduating with a double major in French and Art History. After college, she continued to work at Princeton, and became the assistant to the comptroller–a position she held until her first child was born.

 At 28, she married Paul Bachike, and their daughter, Andrea, was born the next year. Mary Lisa arrived the following year. Despite having two children under two, she jumped in to help her husband with his side business, Susan’s Luncheonette on Prospect Street in Trenton. They purchased a new building in 1961, next to the original location. Ruth helped manage and run the luncheonette, and the apartments housed in the building, while Paul was working during the day as an accountant at General Motors. Daughter Laura arrived in 1963 and Jessie in 1968. At that point, the demands of caring for their home and the four girls pulled her away from their business. Ruth enjoyed homemaking, baking, and sewing beautiful outfits for her girls. Somehow she found time to be a Brownie leader and a Sunday School teacher at the Yardley United Methodist Church too. 

 In 1976, she returned to working outside the home, this time at Princeton University Press, as their first typesetter. She taught others to typeset and rose to the position of Assistant Plant Manager. After retiring in 1992, she joined her sports-loving husband watching Phillies games and became a lifelong fan.

 Much to her delight, grandchildren started arriving in 1998, starting with Laura’s daughters, Jessie and Kaley, followed by her son Ian. Jessie’s son, Hunter and Laura’s son, Dylan arrived later. She adored them all. They kept her vitally alive and busy fashioning Halloween costumes and in the kitchen baking cookies. Ruth was passionate about creating with her hands– sewing, knitting, embroidering and quilting. She was active with Weavers of Wellness, knitting prayer shawls and lap robes for patients in hospitals. She was a voracious reader and had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Despite all of her dreaming and doing, she had an extraordinarily placid and peaceful personality; her mother called her “My Serene Highness.”

 She fought valiantly and stoically to stay with her family. Ruth is survived by her four daughters and their spouses: Andrea and Bill Wallace, Mary Lisa Vidunas, Laura and Michael Murday, and Jessie and Kevin Shaffer. She leaves behind her five grandchildren, her brother, David Dye and his wife, Margarette of Atlanta, GA, her sister-in-law, Joan Dye, as well as nieces and nephews.

 Relatives and friends are invited to gather for visitation from 6-8 PM on Monday, July 1, 2024 at the J. Allen Hooper Funeral Chapel, 41 W. Trenton Ave., Morrisville, PA 19067. There will be a Celebration of Life held at Yardley United Methodist Church on Sunday, July 21 at 3:00 pm, family will be there to greet visitors at 2:30. Her interment in Thompson Memorial Presbyterian Church Cemetery in New Hope will be held privately at the convenience of the family. 

 In lieu of flowers, the family requests that you consider making a memorial contribution, in Ruth’s name, to Doctors Without Borders, FINCA or Laurel House.